US: Hunt ends after Texas shooter accused of killing 5 found hiding in laundry pile

Following a tip-off, authorities in Texas said they found the suspect hiding underneath a pile of laundry in a closet, ending a four-day manhunt for the shooter who is accused of killing five of his neighbours.

Francisco Oropeza, 38, was apprehended without a hitch near the town of Conroe, some 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of Houston and close to his home in the small hamlet of Cleveland. Just before midnight on Friday, according to authorities, he went next door and used an AR-style gun to shoot his neighbours.

According to authorities, Oropeza had been shooting rounds on his land when the attack took place. Neighbours had begged him to move away because the noise was keeping a baby awake.

Sheriff Greg Capers of San Jacinto County announced that Oropeza would be charged with five charges of murder. A $5 million surety bond was set.

“They can rest easy now, because he is behind bars,” Capers said of the families of the victims.

“He will live out his life behind bars for killing those five.”

The arrest puts an end to a dragnet that had expanded to include more than 250 people from several jurisdictions and for whom a prize of $80,000 had been offered. Oropeza “could be anywhere,” the FBI declared as recently as Tuesday morning, underscoring how agents had laboured for days to determine his whereabouts and openly admitted they had no leads.

Oropeza was taken into custody a little over an hour after the tip that put a halt to the chase was received, according to FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul. According to US immigration authorities, the alleged shooter is a Mexican national who was deported four times between 2009 and 2016.

One of more than 200 tips, according to FBI spokesman Connor Hagan, investigators received, this tip’s caller’s identity will not be released. Authorities withheld information about the home’s owners, whether Oropeza knew them, and whether anybody else was present when he was discovered.

They also declined to clarify whether Oropeza’s friends or relatives had assisted him in avoiding capture or where he had been since leaving the Cleveland scene, where authorities had earlier stated he was most likely to have fled on foot.

According to Hagan, the US Marshals, Texas Department of Public Safety, and the US Border Patrol’s BORTAC unit were the three agencies that intervened to arrest Oropeza.

Drones and scent-tracking dogs had been used during the widening manhunt, which included combing a heavily wooded forest a few miles from the scene. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott offered a $50,000 reward as the search dragged late into the weekend, while others offered an additional $30,000 in reward money.

Capers said that prior to Friday’s shooting deputies had been called to the suspect’s house at least one other time previously over shooting rounds in his yard.

All of the victims were from Honduras. Wilson Garcia, who survived the shooting, said friends and family in the home tried to hide and shield themselves and children after Oropeza walked up to the home and began firing, killing his wife first at the front door.

The victims were identified as Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 9.

A government official in Honduras said the remains of four of the victims would be repatriated. Velásquez Alvarado will be buried in the United States at the request of her sister and her husband, said Wilson Paz, general director of Honduras’ migrant protection service.

Osmán Velásquez, Diana’s father, said Tuesday that his daughter had recently gotten residency and had traveled to the United States without documents eight years ago with the help of a sister, who was already living there.

“Her sister convinced me to let her take my daughter. She told me the United States is a country of opportunities and that’s true,” he was quoted as saying by news agency AP.

“But I never imagined it was just for this.”

In offering the reward, Abbott called the victims “illegal immigrants,” a partially false statement that his office walked back and apologized for Monday after drawing wide backlash over drawing attention to their immigration status. Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said they had since learned that one of the victims may have been in the country legally.

(With inputs from agencies)

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